Posts Tagged ‘FINRA’

I truly appreciate reading the thoughts of highly intelligent professionals. I appreciate even more reading the thoughts of those highly intelligent professionals who stand up and speak out in courageous fashion on the serious issues of the day.

Very few individuals with whom I have crossed paths since launching Sense on Cents in early 2009 embody these character traits more than Helen Davis Chaitman.

Helen Davis Chaitman is a nationally recognized litigator with a diverse trial practice in the areas of lender liability, bankruptcy, bank fraud, RICO, professional malpractice, trusts and estates, and white collar defense. In 1995, Ms. Chaitman was named one of the nation’s top ten litigators by the National Law Journal for a jury verdict she obtained in an accountants’ malpractice case. Since early 2009, Ms. Chaitman has been an outspoken advocate for investors in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. She has lobbied in Congress for statutory changes to assure Madoff investors of the protections of the Securities Investor Protection Act.

Ms. Chaitman is truly tireless in fighting for justice and recently launched the site JPMadoff to expose the relationship between JP Morgan and Bernie Madoff that facilitated the perpetration of Wall Street’s largest Ponzi scam.

I am honored that Ms. Chaitman would review my book In Bed with Wall Street. Her review is currently being widely disseminated throughout the blogosphere. I welcome sharing her thoughts here: (more…)

I would love to join any other advisors who have issues with FINRA. I am a former CPA.PFS financial advisor with Morgan Stanley. I too went through a long and expensive FINRA process.

In addition, we filed two whistle blower cases to expose MSSB’s unfair and unethical business practices. The difference, we have over thirty thousand pages of material collected in our case, including some damning e-mails. It is time that someone stood up to these firms who apparently believe that because they have unlimited access to shareholder money, they can always get their way. Let’s come up with some ideas on how to use the legal system if we can, and social media if we cannot, to educate the public on this travesty of a business model. One that cannot even tell its’ own clients that it will “act in their best interest.”

“Our current cronyism is not the property of one political party or the other. As with any cancer, it does not care who it attacks or where it spreads. In the process of unearthing and exposing these crony Wall Street- Washington paths, we have come to learn that large numbers from both political parties, their well-heeled financial benefactors, and many of our financial regulators, all sit on one side of the table while the general investing, consuming, and taxpaying public — along with a large percentage of Wall Street’s own employees — sit on the other.”

A full 6 years from the onset of our ongoing economic crisis, I remain convinced that our nation’s markets and economy remain burdened by the cancer that metatstatized from the corrupt Wall Street-Washington dynamic.

I stated as much in my book as quoted above.

Many have asked me if the current crisis was not enough to excise this cancer what might it take. Another crisis? (more…)

The lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman against Barclays for ‘pernicious fraud’ in the operation of its dark pool sent shock waves through Wall Street yesterday.

The equity valuations for a number of large Wall Street banks declined significantly under the premise that this lawsuit will impact their own business operations in a negative fashion.

Beyond that, though, many might think serious allegations of lying, blatant misrepresentations, fraud, self-dealing, predatory practices aka high frequency trading, investor abuse, and the like mean one thing: just another day on Wall Street.

The hearing will focus on two specific conflicts of interest: payments by wholesale broker-dealers to retail brokers for their customer orders, known as “payment for order flow;” and “maker-taker” rebates or fees that, depending on the circumstances, exchanges either pay or charge to brokers for executing trades on their platforms.

While I hope that some meaningful discussion might expose some of the crony, if not corrupt, practices within our markets, if past is prologue I am prepared to be underwhelmed. Why so? (more…)

Real leaders and financial cops very much appreciate that principle. Those playing politics and crony capitalism circa 2014 find it to be anathema.

Why is it that bad practices on Wall Street (e.g high frequency trading, abusive sales practices, market manipulation) are too often tolerated in Washington while costing ordinary Americans untold sums? Very simply, when the punishments do not fit the crimes the practices will perpetuate. The penalties become little more than a cost of doing business. Those ‘writing the tickets’ are little more than meter maids.

Those engaged in regulatory oversight might not appreciate these assertions but these realities are part and parcel of the self-regulatory model on Wall Street. To think otherwise is simply to be willfully blind. SEC commissioner Kara Stein recently told the folks at FINRA to take off their blinders. (more…)

Of all the questions on all the topics across all the market segments, the one that keeps being repeated by most investors — both institutional and retail alike — is the question regarding the fairness of the game.

That question and others were posed yesterday to James McCaughan who, as President of Principal Global Investors, just so happens to oversee the management of $300 billion and was interviewed by Tom Keene and Michael McKee on Bloomberg Surveillance.

Regarding market fairness in the midst of current high frequency trading practices, McCaughan does not equivocate in stating, “the market is not fair.” (more…)

I thank the countless number of individuals who have introduced me to various media representatives (print, radio, and TV) throughout the country to discuss my work both here at Sense on Cents and in my book In Bed with Wall Street. In the hope that even more media doors might open, I would like to link to a talk I gave earlier this week at Baruch College.

I thank the individual whom I have not met and do not know for having captured my remarks and posted them online. In my talk, I touch upon a host of topics addressed in my book including serious allegations and evidence connected to the misappropriation of funds and insider trading within Wall Street’s self-regulatory organization FINRA, abuse of whistleblowers, sham protection provided by SIPC, and much more including my proposed reforms.

Confident that more than one door to media outlets will be opened by my posting these remarks, I thank those who might share this link with friends and colleagues both inside and outside of the world of media.

I have long maintained that a self-regulatory model for monitoring Wall Street does not and will not work. To think that the brokerage industry could be properly monitored by an organization that it funds in large measure strikes me as ridiculous.

I witness further evidence of this reality in a report that some might think is an indication that this self-regulator, FINRA, is getting tough on Wall Street. If this is tough, then let me puff up the pillows for you and get you a cup of warm cocoa. Let’s navigate as The Wall Street Journalwrites this morning:

Under pressure from Washington to crack down on rogue stockbrokers, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is highlighting a fast-track program it began earlier this year to go after what it calls “high-risk brokers.” (more…)